Klout is a new tool that calculates the amount of influence you have on the world! By connecting with your social networks, Klout factors your daily interactions online and provides you with a Klout Score. We all know we influence those around us, but we finally have a tool that can measure our influence.

Klout Score: "The Klout Score, a number between one and 100, is a representation of your overall social media influence. It looks at who is engaging with your content and who they are sharing it with."

My Klout Score is 56! Not too shabby, but no where near Obama's 99! This is an important tool for anyone in social media or marketing, because we can actually quantify our skills and see the type of moments that influence people in our networks. Employers are even requesting Klout Scores now!

I DO have one bone to pick with Klout: Why can't we add pages or websites, like this one, to be factored into our Klout Score? Currently, there is a short list of web applications/sites (ie: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram...) that can be factored into your score, which might make the score inaccurate.

Update: Some are arguing whether boiling down your influence to one number makes sense. This article brings up some questions like, "Do I want to be simplified into one number?" "Is it fair that employers are asking for something so trivial?" and "Is the score even being measured properly?" One answer is clear, Klout is still in beta, and a lot more still has to be discussed. Who knows whether it's here to stay, or if it will be gone tomorrow?

Vanessa Tritsarolis

Join me on my adventures in experiencing life after college, the new places I visit and things I try out on Pinterest ...and a whole bunch of other random stuff like product reviews and the latest social media news!